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SPEECH 




ME. DANIEL K.^ TILDEN, OF OHIO, 


THE MEXICAN A¥AE. 



DELIVERED 


I 

I 


SN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1846. 


WASHINGTON; 

PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF BLAIR AND RIVES. 

1846. 









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THE MEXICAN WAR. 


1 The House being in Committee of the Whole on 
the state of the Union on the Bill reducing the 
duty on Imports, and for other purposes— 

Mr. TILDEN addressed the committee as fol¬ 
lows: 

i ^ Mr. Chairman: I have been anxious for some 
time for an opportunity to submit to the House 
and to the country a few remarks on the present 
I war with Mexico, the causes which led to that 
I war, the objects of it, and some of the reasons 
which induced me to vote against what is known 
as the war bill. I regret that an opportunity has 
not been afforded me to submit these views at a 
time when they might be presumed to have more 
effect, or at least when they would have a more 
pertinent application to the subject under consid¬ 
eration; but as at that time the House was put 
under the gag, and all debate or opportunity for 
the purpose of objection or explanation peremp¬ 
torily denied, I shall now avail myself of the pres¬ 
ent occasion, under the decision of this House that 
in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the 
Union a member cannot be strictly confined in 
debate to the subject regularly under discussion. 
Notwithstanding this general practice which pre¬ 
vails in this Hall under this rule, I am averse to 
availing myself of it, and should not do so if ordi¬ 
nary courtesy in debate had been extended to the 
minority in any of these matters which relate to 
Texan annexation. 

In my remarks I shall make no effort to produce 
conviction upon the mind of any gentleman now 
present. My speech will be emphatically a speech 
for Buncombe; not a Buncombe speech, however, 
in the commonly received sense of that term, which 
I take to be a speech made with a view to a mem¬ 
ber’s re-election. I confess I have no ambition of 
this sort. If I can be assured of forgiveness for 
having come here at all, I will promise faithfully 
to keep away hereafter. This is the first of my 
political life, and I am resolved it shall be the last. 
But attempts have been made in my State to 
grossly misrepresent the views and feelings of the 
fourteen members of this House who voted against 
the Mexican war bill, and to place before the peo¬ 
ple in a false light all the facts and circumstances 
from which that ^war has resulted; and so far as 
these representations are to have an influence in 
that part of the State where I reside, I am deter¬ 
mined to resist them to the utmost of my ability. 

From a Democratic paper published in my dis¬ 
trict, and which I have recently received, I learn 
that currency is being given to the war speech of 


the honorable gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. I^ug- 
LAss.] And from other sources I am informedihat 
this speech is receiving a large circulation, tnd 
attracting much attention in other parts of Ihe 
State. I am constrained to say, with proper def¬ 
erence to the gentleman’s abilities, that a more S|\e- 
cious and baseless speech was never heard up^ 
this floor, and it is my present purpose on this 
occasion to take some notice of the arguments, if 
arguments they may be called, which it contains. 

So far as I am personally^oncerned, I care noth¬ 
ing about these misrepresentations. I had expected 
they would be made, and this, too, I have no doubt, 
was what was anticipated by every intelligent man 
in the country. From the very nature of the vote, 
I knew it would arouse the demagoguism of the 
country. It was very peculiarly calculated to call 
it forth. There is nothing new or extraordinary 
in all this. For more than thirty years, a certain 
class of unworthy politicians have acquired place 
and power under this Government, by denouncing 
those who opposed the last war with England, and 
it was quite easy to foresee that a strenuous effort 
would be made to associate the fourteen members 
who voted against this war bill, with the Federal¬ 
ists who opposed the war measures of President 
Madison. Now, I will here take occasion to say, 
that I have no affinities with Federalism. Before 
I was capable of determining for myself what was 
right or wrong in politics, that party had ceased to 
exist, and so far as early education or early preju¬ 
dices are concerned, they were all unfavorable to 
Federalism; for, after the straitest of the sect, I was 
bred a Democrat. But justice requires me to say 
that this old Federal party, with all its faults—and 
it had faults, and prominent among them was their 
intenaperate opposition to the war measures of Mr. 
Madison—in all that could ennoble and dignify 
human nature, they stood higher than the Alps, in 
compai'ison with those time-serving men by whom 
they have been most denounced. They had a more 
true patriotism, and a sincerer regard to the true 
interests and honor of the country, than the great 
body of those whose business it has been for the 
last thirty years to vilify them. 

In the present case, it is perfectly obvious what 
have been the true reasons for the denunciations 
fulminated against the fourteen members who have 
opposed this war bill, as well as the pteans which 
have been so loudly sung to the Mexican war 
itself. It is even obvious what it was that prompt¬ 
ed my colleague over the way [Mr. Thurman] to 
denounce me and my other colleagues who differed 
with him upon that bill. It was the fancied anal- 







4 


ogy, or wbat he supposed the people would regard 
as analogy, between this Mexican war and the last 
war with/England, that has led him thus to exper¬ 
iment wiih our reputations. But gentlemen will 
yet find they have made a grievous mistake in this 
business. They will yet be informed that they 
placed far too low an estimate upon the intelligence 
and moral sense of this nation, when they persua¬ 
ded Uemselves that all the obloquy which attached 
to th( opponents of the last war could be fixed upon 
those who o])posed the present war. If my col- 
leag’ie [Mr. Thurman] anticipated any such result 
in Chio, he deceived himself, in my opinion. One 
thi’ig I know perfectly well—it will not happen in 
district. Party appliances are powerful for 
miny things, but they cannot long uphold this 
Nexican war in the section of the State to which 
I belong. If gentlemen were there even now, they 
vould very quickly have their eyes open as to what 
was soon to be public sentiment upon it. 

What can be greater than the difference between 
these two wars? Our last war with England was 
a war for the maintenance of high and important 
principles—a war of self-defence—a war in the 
defence of the dearest rights of the citizen—a war 
urged upon us by a series of most unparalleled in¬ 
juries, a,nd open insults offered to our national flag 
and national honor; insults that never could have 
been submitted to without national degradation; 
and this war was therefore justly denominated a 
second war for independence. And now, how shall 
I describe the present war ? I choose not to venture 
upon a description. My colleague from the Colum¬ 
bus district [Mr. Delano] did it very faithfully in 
the remarks he submitted to the House some days 
past; and in doing it subjected himself to the very 
severe criticism of the gentleman from New York, 
now in the chair, [Mr. Gordon;] and his descrip¬ 
tion of it was also very particularly offensive to my 
colleague over the way, from the Chillicothe district, 
[Mr. Thurman.] Now, in speaking of this war, I 
will not use my own language, least I disturb 
the sensibilities of the Chair; but will quote that 
employed by a certain Democratic convention in 
the city of New York, who have, in the strongest 
terms, denounced this war in advance. I shall be 
safe, I take it, in employing the language of this 
Democratic convention, one of the officers of which 
was the able and well-known editor of the New 
York Evening Post. Last year, that convention 
declared that war with Mexico would be “ a war 
‘ for conquest, an unjust war, a war in which the 
‘ nation would be sustained by no sense of rio-ht, 

‘ but condemned by the unanimous voice of the 
‘civilized and Christian wmrld.” 

Thus much for opinions which gentlemen have 
expressed concerning this war, and as to what are 
to be the sentiments of the people generally, soon¬ 
er or later, in regard to it. 

The people will be at no loss to determine be¬ 
tween these two wars. I warn gentlemen that 
there is to be a searching discrimination and sol¬ 
emn inquiry entered into before this business is 
over; an inquiry that will cause certain political 
gentlemen, if I mistake not, to shake in their 
shoes. The question will yet be asked, what this 
Mexican war has been for ? When this becomes 
the grand inquest of the people, will the present 


abetters of this w'ar be prepared to meet it? The 
novelty and the interest which have been awaken¬ 
ed by this new relation of war, and which have 
accompanied the commencement of this struggle, 
will have passed away, and will give place To a 
sober inquiry as to the sacrifices made, and the 
results obtained. There are yet to be disclosures 
made in relation to this annexation and its results 
that will chill the blood of honest men in their 
veins. The means by which the people are to 
be fleeced of their money in the prosecution of 
this war will put to shame the enormities of the 
Florida war. We have already been called upon 
to pay ^800,000 for services that might have been 
rendered for ^200,000. I refer to the account ren¬ 
dered to the Government for transporting baggage, 
&c.,_and which this House ordered to be published; 
but it has not yet made its appearance. And all 
this wicked waste of treasure, taken from the pock¬ 
ets of the toiling millions and transferred to unprin¬ 
cipled army speculators in Texas, to say nothing of 
the sacrifice of the lives of tens of thousands of our 
citizens,—all these sacrifices ai'e to be made, that 
land speculators between the Nueces and the Rio 
Grande may be secure in the possession of their 
ill-gotten plunder. I have become acquainted in 
this city with a very respectable French gentleman, 
well knowm here, who has recently returned from 
Eu rope, where he has been to obtain some German 
emigrants to Texas. He informed me that he 
held by grant from the Texan Government seven 
hundred and fifty thousand acres of land lying 
beyond the Nueces upon this disputed territory, 
to secure which the present war is prosecuted. 
Whenever we secure a title to this territory, this 
land, at the minimum price of our public land, 
will be worth little short of a million of dollars. 
This is not an isolated case; the whole coun- 
try, doubtless, between these two rivers has been 
parcelled out in this way. And now, how much 
blood is wanted from my district in order to 
make millionaires of these foreign speculators, 
who have never devoted one hour of their time or 
a dollar of their money to the support of our free 
institutions? _ I trust, sir, that not one drop of it 
will be shed in so unjust a cause. 

Thus much as to the power of the people to 
discriminate between this war and the late war 
with Great Britain. 

I wdll now go into some of the reasons which 
induced me to give the vote for which I have been 
so strenuously denounced in certain quarters. I 
voted against the war bill, because it contained, as 
I believed, a direct and positive falsehood in its 
preamble. It asked me to acknowledge that which, 
of all other things, I was then, and am now, most 
anxious to deny. 

This preamble recites “That whereas, by the 
act of theJRepublic of Mexico, war exists between 
that Government and the United States.” Now, 
is this true? And let me add, sir, much imiwrt- 
ance attaches to, the inquiry. Public sentiment, 
to a great extent, will hinge upon this very point. 

If it can be shown to be true, it will go far towards 
reconciling the people to this war. I believe it to 
be utterly false; and what I am now about to say 
I shall hereafter repeat in every quarter of my own 
district. I now turn to the gentleman IVom Illi- 








5 


nois, [Mr. Douglass,] and put to him the direct 
question: Whether it i^ true that this war has 
happened by the act of Mexico herself? [Mr. 
Douglass nodded assent.] The gentleman says 
that it is. Now, for the purpose of illustrating 
this matter, I will put a case to him—not only to 
him, but to the country; and I am sure it is such 
a case as will come home to the feelings of every 
American citizen. I will suppose the case of Ore¬ 
gon. I believe it has not been disputed that our 
title tp the country on the left bank of the Colum¬ 
bia river “ is clear and unquestionable.” I will 
now suppose that upon the right bank—that is, 
upon the north bank of the Columbia—we had 
been in possession of the country for a century 
past—that our people had built their villages and 
towns along that river from its mouth to its source 
—that we had erected a custom-house at the mouth 
of the river opposite Astoria, at which British 
subjects had paid duties upon their merchandise 
to our Government. Now suppose, all at once, 
and in the face of these facts, and in violation of 
two solemn treaties by which she had recognized 
our title to this territory. Great Bi-itain should 
come forward and lay claim to the country by 
right of conquest, where never a soldier of hers 
had set foot upon the soil but to be captured. To 
enforce this claim, suppose her to march a British 
army, with their colors flying and their music play¬ 
ing, through the maturing grainfields of our citi¬ 
zens, v/ho are forced to fly to the opposite bank 
of the river for protection against these invaders— 
suppose this army to take post upon the high land 
opposite Astoria, erect its battery, and bring its 
cannon to bear upon the public square of that 
town—suppose a British fleet to collect off the 
mouth of the river, and cut off all supplies and all 
trade from Astoria, and now a British general 
should send word across the river to our citizens, 
all this bank of the river is ours, don’t presume 
to set foot here; the first man who shall dare cross 
the river will be regarded as the enemy of Great 
Britain”—suppose further, that in the face of 
these threats we should march a detachment of 
American troops across the river to the right bank, 
and should accidentally encounter this hostile 
force under the colors of England. If, in such a 
posture of things, the Parliament of Great Britain 
should issue a solemn proclamation declaring that 
war existed by act of the United States, where is 
the man in America who would not at once declare 
it an audacious falsehood. And yet, wherein is 
the analogy defective? I call upon the gentleman 
from Illinois to show. 

[Mr. Douglass here said that he had no wish, 
by replying at this moment, to take away any 
portion of the hour allotted to the gentleman from 
Ohio; but when that gentleman should be through 
with his remarks, Mr. D. would avail himself of 
the opportunity then afforded to show where the 
analogy was defective, and to how great an ex¬ 
tent.] 

Mr. Tildex, (resuming.) I will wait with pa¬ 
tience to hear the gentleman’s explanation, though 
I am persuaded, upon this poiiit he will make no 
improvement upon his former speech. I challenge 
the gentleman to disturb this analogy, or to show 
a distinction between these cases, that shall be 


intelligible to a single member of this l4xuse It 
cannot be done. If the forces of GreA Britain 
were upon the north bank of the ColumlVi wUii 
their- guns bearing upon Astoria, and on^f her 
generals should talk to a general of ours si Gen¬ 
eral Worth talked to the Mexican GeneralVeo-a 
there would go up from every man—yea,Vrmn 
every woman and child—one unbroken ci-Ato 
arras ! It is well for us to consider how our coVse 
will be likely to appear in the eyes of othersl I 
go for no such maxim as that often quoted vAh 
appiobation here—Our country, right orwrongj’ 

I believe in this case we are wrong, most clea^ 
wickedly wrong; and I shall struggle to maintai| 
that which I believe to be right. General Veo-1 
said to General M^orth, at an interview had at IVdatA 
amoros before the battle of Palo Alto, “Our peopl^ 
are grieved to see the flag of the United States' 
floating upon the left bank of that river. There 
is the home of our people; there is our custom¬ 
house, our towns and hamlets; and there stand 
the whitening harvests of our citizens; and we 
regard your presence there as an act of unjustifi¬ 
able invasion.” General Worth replied, that 
this was a matter of taste; that however unpleas¬ 
ant it might be to them to see our flag floating upon 
the left bank of the Rio Grande, still that flag 
would continue to float there. Suppose this lan¬ 
guage had been addressed to us by a British com¬ 
mander on the banks of the Columbia; that we 
had said we grieved to see the Cross of St. George 
floating on the bank of that river; and he had 
replied that this is a matter of taste, and however 
much you may grieve, my Government instructs 
ine to say the Cross of St. George will still con¬ 
tinue to float there: Whose blood would not boil 
in his veins at such an outrage? Whose hand 
would not clutch the sword to avenge the foul 
insult? I thought it was the maxim of the dom¬ 
inant party here to demand nothing but what was 
clearly right, while they submitted to nothing that 
was wrong. I am for adhering to this principle, 
and by it I am willing to judge this question of 
the Mexican war. I maintain that Mexico had 
(if the case admits of comparison) a better title—a 
more “ clear and unquestionable title”—to the left 
bank of the Rio Grande than we to the right bank 
of the Columbia; ay, a title she had, in my opinion, 
free from all doubt. And this is a question I am 
willing to put to the common sense of every man; 
nor do I believe that the human mind can be so 
stultified as to make up a false judgment in the 
case, when the facts are rightly understood. 

It is not my intention to impute to the gentleman 
from Illinois any improper motives in making the 
speech which has been circulated among my con¬ 
stituents. With the gentleman’s motives I have 
nothing to do, but of his speech I have a right to 
speak, and I will say, that while I consider it 
ingenious, it is, at the same time, one of the most 
flimsy and sophistical productions that I have ever 
heard upon this floor. Speeches of this character 
may sometimes do very well upon the stump, 
where arguments are not always very accurately 
put to the test. But I confess I should not have 
dared to venture a speech like that in this Hall. I 
have too much respect for the place, too much rev¬ 
erence for the great men who, with so much honor 








6 


to ithe coiuitry, have filled these seats in days gone 
by^ to have attempted it. In a forum like this, it 
seems to me, men should be held to a more strict 
accountability for what they utter. 

_ The first argument on which the gentleman re¬ 
lied was the despatch addressed by the venerable 
gentleman from Massachusetts near me, [Mr. 
Adams,] when American Secretary of State, to 
Don Onis, the Spanish Minister, while the nego¬ 
tiation in 1819 was progressing between these two 
gentlemen for the adjustment of the Louisiana 
bodndary. The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. 
Dquglass] alleges that, in the despatch referred 
toj the gentleman from Massachusetts declared our 
title to be as good to the left bank of the Rio 
Grrande as to the isle of Orleans. It is obvious to 
every one that if this w'ere true, and that Louisi¬ 
ana did in fact extend to the Rio Grande, it is not 
legitimate argument for the gentleman in this case. 
It will be recollected we are concluded from making 
claim to this portion of country by treaties both 
with Spain and Mexico, fixing the Sabine as the 
boundary. And again: it does not follow that be¬ 
cause Louisiana extended to the Rio Grande, that 
the Mexican department of Texas extended there 
also. So far from it, the fact is notoriously the 
contrary of this. But I do not avail myself of 
these objections, glaring and prominent as they 
are, but put it to the gentleman to say whether his 
is a proper argument upon a question of this char¬ 
acter.? Is it a fair way to prove our title to a cer¬ 
tain boundary by producing what a public agent 
of our Government had said while conducting a 
negotiation with a nation who had a counter claim.? 

I do not pretend to know with any special accu¬ 
racy what is proper in diplomacy, though I have 
a general idea of it, as I presume all others have. 
This much I do know, that from the manner iii 
which diplomatic negotiations have usually been 
conducted among the nations of the world, they 
amount to little else than a system of international 
jockeying, in which each party endeavors to get 
the better of the other; and submit, with much 
gravity and many plausible arguments, claims 
which they never expect to be able to enforce. 
Immemorial usage seems to have sanctioned, in 
this sort of intercourse, all manner of trickery; 
and a diplomatic agent, who should fail to avml 
himself of these means, would be suspected of an 
offence little, if any, short of treason to his Gov¬ 
ernment. _ Our able and distinguished negotiator of 
the Louisiana treaty, now near me, in conductino- 
that negotiation, acted, it is presumed, in accordance 
with this established usage, and just as those did by 
whom he was opposed. With what pretence or 
show of propriety, then, can the gentleman seize 
upon the language of this despatch to make out our 
title to the Rio Grande ? What would we think of 
a.lawyer who, in a court of justice, upon a question 
of property, should insist that it was his client’s, 
because his client said so. Were I to employ such 
logic as this, and the gentleman were the opposing 
counsel, I am sure he would laugh me in the face; 
and yet this is literally the sort of argument upon 
which the gentleman relies in the outset of his 
speech. 

[Mr. Douglass here interposed, and said he pre¬ 
sumed it was the object of the gentleman from 


Ohio to reply to the speech as it was made, and 
not as the gentleman might think proper to make 
it for him. Mr. D., as the gentleman, and all 
who heard him, must recollect^had expressly dis¬ 
claimed any reliance on this despatch, as having 
anything to do with the proof of the case; but as 
the gentleman’s colleague [Mr. Delano] had talk¬ 
ed a great deal about ancient references, as if they 
vvere good authority, Mr. D. had said he could 
give him a specimen of such quotation on the 
other side; but he had expressly declared that he 
discarded all such authorities on both sides.] 

Mr. Tilden said the gentleman had certainly 
made this despatch a part of his proof of title, as a 
reference to his speech would show. The gentle- 
nian not having his speech before him, and speak¬ 
ing from recollection, had fallen into a slight mis¬ 
take. But I was about to say, when interrupted, 
that the gentleman’s good sense did prevail and 
that he did say in his speech, he should not rely 
upon the musty records of French and Spanish 
courts, but upon a far more glorious title, that of 
conquek. 

Mr. Douglass. Ah, that indeed. 

Mr. Tilden. Y es, the gentleman said so; and 
I hold him responsible for it. And I now proceed 
to show upon what principles it was that he en¬ 
deavored to make out his title by conquest. The 
gentleman does not now controvert the fhet, as I 
understand him, that the original western limits of 
Texas was the river Nueces. By extending them 
to the Rio Grande we cut off from Mexico the 
greater proportion of four of her other departments, 
namely, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and 
New Mexico, all lying beyond the Nueces; and it 
is to these that the gentleman attempted to prove 
title by conquest. He informed us that he had 
qualified himself for the task he had imposed upon 
himself of making our title to this territory by con¬ 
quest, by consulting the distinguished leaders of the 
Texan Revolution, Generals Houston and Rusk, 
whom, he said, were present in the Hall at the time 
he delivered his speech. And now, with these 
high sources of information, what did the gentle¬ 
man give us to support this boasted claim of title 
by conquest ? Battles fought in these departments ? 
Their strong holds conquered by the Texans? 
Nothing of this sort. Never did a Texan soldier 
set foot in these departments but to be captured. 
But the gentleman says, some of the men Avho re¬ 
sided beyond the Nueces participated in the Texan 
rebellion', and were members of the convention 
that formed her Constitution. This, after consult¬ 
ing his two Texan Generals, is all the proof that 
the gentleman can give us of conquest. How many 
were there of these men? This is the great ques¬ 
tion he should have answered to the country. 
How many men would it take, in the gentleman’s 
estimation, to effect the disintegration of these 
departments, and transfer of the^fragments from 
Mexico to Texas? Were there men enough to 
eftect such an object? Were there ten men? 
Were there twenty? Thirty? Were there a hun¬ 
dred in all? These questions are very important; 
but depend upon it, the gentleman from Illinois 
will never attempt to answer them. There is also 
an important principle to settle, whether any num¬ 
ber of men less than a majority could transfer 







7 


these four departments from Mexico to the United 
Stales. To my unsophisticated mind, it seems 
^ that it would require at least a majority to effect 
such a change. It should have been the great 
point, therefore, in the gentleman’s argument, to 
show the number of men west of the Nueces, 
who participated in this rebellion; and the gentle¬ 
man has racked his brain, and put his mind to 
the stretch, and finally come to the conclusion 
that there were certainly two such men: one 
by the name of Reny, and another by the 
name of Pierce, I think. This, to say the least 
of it, is most extraordinary, that three depart¬ 
ments of a government, should be transferred to 
another, because two men were in rebellion in a 
1 fourth department. The two men referred to by 
( the honorable gentleman, resided in the department 
1 of Tamaulipas, and it is not to be denied that a 
1 very few individuals around Corpus Christi, in 
this department, did sympathize with the Texans 
in their rebellion. But were there any from 
Coahuila, Chihuahua, and New Mexico? Who 
represented the several important towns in these 
departments ? Who came from Albuquerque, with 
its six thousand souls ? Who represented Taos, 
with its three thousand, and Sante Fe, with its five 
I thousand souls ? I ask the gentleman to answer, and 
I will see that his answer is made known to my con¬ 
stituents. Did there a single soul represent either 
of these departments in the Texan Congress or 
Texan Convention? I answer, no; and among the 
many things the gentleman from Illinois learned 
about this title from the distinguished Texan Gen- 
i erals he consulted, he did not learn that either of 
i these departments was ever represented in any 
I Texan Congress or Convention. 

Thus much as to this country being represented 
in Texas. And on the score of conquest, there 
is absolutely nothing. The distinguished men 
whom the gentleman from Illinois consulted, 
should have been at home upon this point. They 
were cognizant of every blow which had been 
i given and received in this Texan Revolution, and 
yet they were not able to tell the gentleman of one 
poor spot of earth that had been conquered between 
the Nueces and the Del Norte. If these distin¬ 
guished Texans had talked at all on this subject, 
they would have told the gentleman, doubtless, 
what were the real facts of the case : that in 1836, 
soon after Texas had declared herself independent, 
she sent an expedition to seize the custom-house 
and public property at Matamoros, but before it 
reached the Rio Grande it was driven back by the 
army under the command of Santa Ana; that a 
small marauding expedition, in 1839, was sent to 
Saltillo, in Coahuila, whose only glory was its 
masterly retreat and escape into Texas; that in 
1841 President Lamar sent commissioners and three 
hundred armed men on the celebrated Santa Fe 
expedition, to organize the Mexican settlements 
on the upper waters of the Rio Grande, and bring 
them under Texan authority. These men, it is 
well known, were captured and sent to the mines 
of Mexico. In the summer of 1842, the Mexican 
army advanced into Texas as far as San Antonio. 
The Texans, under General Somerville, rallied, 
and drove .them back to Loredo, on the Rio 
Grande, which town the Texans sacked. General 


Somerville, unable to restrain their rapa 
dered a retreat; five or six hundred of 1 
refused to obey, elected a new leader, and 
down the river to capture Mier, but were 
selves captured by General Ampudia, and ma 
off as prisoners into the interior of Mexico. T. 
are all the military expeditions which histoi/ 
closes, that were set on foot by Texas for tl%>^ 
quest of the country beyond the Nueces; am*s.^ 
for the people to judge how far Texas has aV-'^ 
to lay claim to this country by conquest. 
are the facts upon which the gentleman has asVv^ 
my constituents to believe we had title to all 
country between the Nueces and the Rio Gran^ ’ 
And to support such a title he contends is ju\ 
cause of war against Mexico. However muclr 
the gentleman may promise, not one of the facts to 
which I have referred bearing upon this part of 
his argument, or any of the inferences drawn from 
them, will ever be disturbed by him. It is in the 
face of these he must prove title to this country, if 
he proves it at all. It does seem that the gentleman’s 
argument, drawn from conquest, is even more im¬ 
potent than that drawn from the despatches. But 
feeling the weakness of his position on this point, 
the gentleman has deemed it necessary to prop it, 
and therefore resorted to another fact which occu¬ 
pies a prominent place in his speech. If the gen¬ 
tleman had confidence in his assertion that the 
Texan title, by conquest, extended to the Rio 
Grande, if it was so perfectly demonstrated, why 
go farther? ^ 

The gentleman’s third position was that we held 
the country between the Nueces and the Rio 
Grande by treaty, entered into in 1836, between 
Santa Ana and the Texan Government. The 
force of the gentleman’s logic had been such as to 
demonstrate, not that Santa Ana had power to 
bind the Government of Mexico, he being a pris¬ 
oner of war at the time of making this treaty, but 
that he need not bind it, because he was himself 
the Government. I will put to that gentleman a 
plain question: Has he ever read that treaty? From 
the manner in-which he discusses it, I should think 
he had not. If he will consult that treaty, he will 
find that both the contracting parties—President 
Burnett and his Cabinet on one side, and Santa 
Ana and his Generals on the other, recognise the 
supreme power not to be in Santa Ana, as he sup¬ 
poses, but in the Mexican Congress. The treaty 
itself upsets the whole foundation upon w^hich this 
part of the gentleman’s argument is built. It was, 
in fact, no Itreaty, but a mere preliminary engage¬ 
ment. The fourth article of it reads: ^ 

“ 4th. That the President Santa Ana, in his official char¬ 
acter as chief of the Mexican nation, and tlie Generals Don 
Vicente Filisola, Don Josd Urea, Don Joaquin Ramires y 
Sesma, and Don Antonio Gaona, as chiefs of armies, do 
solemnly acknowledge, sanction, and ratify, the full, entire, 
and perfect independence of the Republic of Texas, with 
such boundaries as are hereafter set forth and agreed upon 
for the same. And they do solemnly and respectively pledge 
themselves, with all their personal and official attributes, to 
procure without delay the final and complete ratification 
and confirmation of this agreement, and all the parts thereof, 
hy the proper and legitimcxte Government of Mexico, hy the 
incorporation of the same into a solemn and perpetual treaty 
of amity and commerce, to be negotiated with that Govern¬ 
ment at the city of Mexico, by Ministers Plenipotentiary to 
be deputed by the Government of Texas for this high pur¬ 
pose.” 









8 


oe seen at once that here again the gen- 
.rom piinois is most egregiously at fault. 
3t at liberty to step in and give a construc- 
tius agreement different from that under¬ 
and intended by the parties who entered into 
-his would be to violate the rule first to be 
ved in the construction of contracts. Another 
le ot this treaty provided that in the event of 
dure on the part of Mexico to fulfil the agree- 
nt, that Santa Ana and his Generals should not, 
ring the war, serve against Texas. Here, then, 
this much talked-of treaty—a mere contract, by 
/Inch Santa Ana and his Generals agree to use 
their personal and official attributes to procure the 
consummation of a definitive treaty to be entered 
into by the legitimate and proper authorities ofMex- 
tco, with ministers thereafter to be deputed on the 
1 ^ purpose. This agreement, 

made by Santa Ana, was indignantly rejected by 
Mexico So far from concluding that Govern¬ 
ment, It was not binding upon Santa Ana himself. 
He was a prisoner of war, and not at liberty to 
act; and it was to save his life that he entered into 
this agreement, as the 8th article of it fully dis¬ 
closes. The 8th article reads: 


exerdSi^ Cabinet of the Republic of Texas, 

e high jiowers confided to them bv the neonle 
‘^ou^deration of the fo^"^in| 

taking^the life of 

late I oflicers of hii 

events of war have made prisoners 
liands, and to liberate the President, (Saiita Ana ) 

It national vessels of Texas to Vera Cruz, in order 
promptly and effectually ohtava the ratifi- 
trp-^ur /* ■ and the negotiation of the definitive 

It IS under color and upon the authority of such 
an agreement as this that the gentleman’s con¬ 
science would be satisfied to take from Mexico Sie 
nmntf of four of the richest of her depart- 

[Mr. Tibbatts here interposed, and stated there 
were two treaties to which Santa Ana was a party, 
one signed by Santa Ana alone, and one signed bv 
hud fof these'freaties 
refei^ed n f ^i gentleman 

Mr V ’ ^ wholly omitted.l 

did mJhtT"' from’iCentucky 

Old me the honor to communicate this fact to me 

this morning m a private conversation. From the 

werrS.nefnf r™ ' ‘I"* 

18tB Th? ‘I'e Htli of May, 

1836. The gentleman will see at once that there 
eing two treaties, but both signed the same day 
be ween substantially the same parties, detracts’ 

SmuId^beT^ remarks, though it 

Should be shown that another treaty than the one 

the^Dartis^ have referred, was finally adopted by 
j ^ order to show that the 

Uea y was not made by Mexico in the person of 

msed%te Glenerals. That Texls recog- 

arthVlLf ’o Santa Ana, 

the Mevknn p""*' ‘^^Joged, but in 

not X Congress. And even though this be 
wtiff / agreement actually concluded, 

yet It IS legitimate to refer to it to show that Texas 

mlr^ pT^r Mexican Govern¬ 

ment. But the gentleman from Kentucky does 


not inform us which of the two treaties was las 
made and finally adopted by the parties. I avc; 
that mine was the treaty adopted, and I am born( 
out in the assertion by every well-authenticatec 
history of Texas. 

_ There is another view of this subject, that Jus¬ 
tice requires me to notice. Whatever may have been 
die character of this treaty, it was first violated by 
Texas. By it Santa Ana was to have been imme¬ 
diately conveyed in a national vessel to Vera Cruz: 
but after he was placed on board of a ship for this 
purpose, to satisfy the morbid curiosity of a dis¬ 
solute soldiery who had just arrived in the harbor 
of Velasco from New Orleans, he was dragged 
on shore, and, as he states, chained to a bar of 
iron, a.nd kept a prisoner for fifty days; and during 
that time, to appease a lawless mob, was once 
takQj 3 out to be shot. While such prisoner, he 
repudiated the treaty, and protested against it, by 
a public protest published in Texas. 

There is one other matter in which the gentle¬ 
man s speech is a little extraordinary. If the object 
of the gentleman had been to enlighten Congiss 
and the country in the true facts of this case, why 
had he said nothing about this agreement, made 
three years after, between the Texan Government 
and the Mexican General, Canales, for the con¬ 
quest from Mexico of this very territory to which 
the gentleman from Illinois said they had so clear 
a title ? Is it to be believed that a government 
would ever conspire with a foreign general to con¬ 
quer a part of its own territory? Certainly not. 
Texas at that time could not have pretended to any 
title to this territory, but wanted to get one by 
conquest. 

_ Ill 1839, the advocates of the federal system 
in the northern provinces of Mexico attempted to 
separate from the central Government and form an 
mdependent republic, to be called the Republic of 
Rio Grande, to be constituted of the States of 
Tamauhpas, Coahuila, and Durango, and such 
otiiers ^ might choose to join them in this move¬ 
ment. General Canales took the lead in this enter¬ 
prise, was made President, and as such, entered 
into this secret agreement with the Government of 


ov! n The President of the Republic of Rio Grande IGen 
nf to declare the indepeiiLnc^ 

^'■'mde, and to declare and establisl 
^ Constitution of 1824, so soon as b, 

shall have established his headquarters within the limits o 
the territory claimed by the said republic. 

-.o .1 That the Republic of Rio Grande shall, immediateb 

rVo recognised by the Republic oi 


This expedition failed, and Canales and th 
Texans who cooperated were driven, by Genera 
Arista, over the Nueces. ^ 

tnliuZl^ suppose, 

to militate somewhat against the soundness of tin 

to® upon 

tififllff * President Polk, to justify his most unjus 
ifiable proceedings in tins war, m his war message 

attempts tc 

give us the muniments of our title to tljis territory 
as he understands them. At tlie time this messagi 









9 


was communicated, be it remembered, the Presi¬ 
dent had all the benefit of the gentleman’s very 
able argument; for it will be recollected that lie 
made substantially the same speech on the 26th 
of March, in reply to the gentleman from Pennsyl¬ 
vania, [Mr. McIlvaine.] President Polk, there¬ 
fore, had the full benefit of all the gentleman’s 
elucidations. And what does President Polk say ? 
Has he made the slightest mention of a treaty with 
Santa Ana ? Has he quoted a word of it ? No • he 
did not even allude to it. Mr. Polk had too much 
stake to venture upon an argument of that sort. 
He had too much character as a statesman yet left. 
He is not like the gentleman from Illinois and my¬ 
self, who are politicians of smaller ventures, and 
with greater safety may say things that it mio-ht 
puzzle us to prove. When a President of the ILii- 
ted States prepares an Executive message, he has 
to mind his p’s and q’s, (as we sometimes say,) 
and cannot play the stump orator, like smaller men. 
It IS abundptly evidpt that the President has no 
confidence in this third point in the gentleman’s 
speech, by which he sought to make out a title to 
the left bank of the Rio Grrande. He regards it as 
worthless, and unworthy of the slightest notice, 
how^ever much the gentleman himself may be at¬ 
tached to it. 

The President, in his message says : 


« TAe Congress of Texas, by its act of December 19, 1836, 
has declared the Rio del Norte to be the boumlary of that re¬ 
public, Its jurisdiction has been extended and exercised beyond 
the Nueces. The country beticecn that river and the Del Norte 
fms been represented in the Congress and the Convention of 
Texas, aiul has thus taken part in annexation itself, and, is now 
included in one of our congressional districts. Our own Con¬ 
gress h(^ moreover, mth great unanimity, by the act approved 
December 31, 1845, recognised the counti-y beijond the Nueces 
as a part of our territory, and by including it within our own 
revenue system; and a revenue officer, to reside vnthin the dis¬ 
trict, has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate.” 

These, and these alone, are the facts upon which 
the President relies for title. It will be seen that 
he rejects in toto the view taken of the subject by 
the gentleman from Illinois. He says nothing 
about despatches—nothing of conquest—and no¬ 
thing of a treaty with Santa Ana or with Mex¬ 
ico. Never did a speech, upon the Administra¬ 
tion side of the House, get poorer backing from the 
Pre.sident than this speech of the gentleman from 
Illinois. 

A few words, Mr. Chairman, upon the Pres¬ 
ident’s view of this title, and then I shall have 
done with the question of title altogether; and 
also with that portion of the preamble of the war 
bill (which I have been laboring to refute) that 
alleges this wnr to exist by the act of Mexico. 

The President claims title to the Rio Grande, 
first, that Texas by act of Congress made that 
river her western limit. Truly this is a strange 
argument! _ Had she included in that act all Mex¬ 
ico, according to the President’s logic, our claim 
to it v/ould be good. Notwithstanding the high 
source from which this argument emanates, I mn 
constrained to say, that it is a useless waste of 
words to attempt to refute it. The pod sense of 
the country will readily appreciate its absurdity. 
The second pound of title is, that Texas has 
exercised jurisdiction, not to the Rio Grande, 
but beyond the Nueces. It may have been be¬ 


yond the Nueces, and two hundred miles short 
of ^ the Rio Grande or Del Norte,* to wiiich 
it is said our title extends. W^here beyond the 
Nueces was jurisdiction exercised The Pres¬ 
ident would blush to tell you where! It was ex¬ 
ercised over a few of these Texan adventurers 
who had crowded into a corner of the department 
of Tamplipas—into the town of Corpus Christi— 
which lies upon the Gulf, and but a few miles 
from the Nueces. Here w'as exercised this pre¬ 
tended jurisdiction. It was here, and nowhere 
else. The third ground of title is, that the country 
between the Nueces and the Del Norte, or Rio 
Grande, w^as represented in the Texan Congress, 
and in the Texan Convention, and is now a part 
of one of ouiy Congressional districts. It was 
Corpus Christi alone that \^as represented—a 
few Texans who had crossed the Nueces, and 
who, of course, sympathized and acted with their 
old neighbors on the other side of the river. They 
constituted but a fraction only of the population 
of the department of Tamaulipas. It was these, 
and only these, that w’ere so represented. No one 
of the other departments, now claimed as a part 
of Texas, had any such representation. It is by 
virtue of these marauders at Corpus Christi not 
only that Tamaulipas, but the three other Mex¬ 
ican departments are sought to be transferred to 
Texas. 

If the country lying between these two rivers was 
represented in the Texan Congress; if the people of 
this section had amalgamated with Texas—had vol¬ 
untarily become a part of that republic; how did 
it happen that General Taylor found them all our 
enemies when he arrived there with the army? 
If what the President has said be true, they would 
with joy have hailed his approach, as they would 
have considered him there for their special benefit 
and protection. Why did not these good Texan 
citizens rally to the General’s standard, and help 
to promote the success of this military expedition ? 
They did not; but fled from our army, and rallied 
under the banners of Mexico. But it is a part of 
one of our congressional districts, says the Pres¬ 
ident. This is begging the whole question. If it 
be a part of one of our congressional districts, then 
our Union extends to the Rio Grande. But the 
c[uestion is, how came this a part of one of our 
congrepional districts ? This, the President does 
not think proper to discuss. Texas, under the 
annexation resolutions, was admitted into the 
Union, with a right to two Representatives upon 
this floor. She has divided herself into districts, 
and elected members for each; but if she has ex¬ 
tended either of these districts beyond the Nueces, 
or even defined the western limit of the western 
district, the act is null and void; for, by the terms 
of annexation, the right to adjust her western 
boundary was surrendered to the United States. 
We have refused to recognise the Rio Grande as 
the western limits pf Texas. By the terms of the 
annexation resolutions, we annex so much “as is 
‘ properly included in, and rightfully belonging to, 

‘ the Republic of Texas.’’ No one upon this floor 
believed at that time that Texas had the least claim 


* This river is indiscriminatelj^ called Rio Grande, Rio 
del Norte, and Rio Bravo. 










10 


to tlie territory beyond the Nueces. Mr. Benton 
said, at the other end of the Capitol— 

“ I wash my hands of all attempts to dismember the Mexi¬ 
can Rej)uhlic, by seizing her dominions in New Mexico, Chi¬ 
huahua, Ooahuila, and Tamaulipas. Tlie treaty, in all that 

RELATES TO THE BOUNDARY OF THE RiO GrANDE, TS AN ACT 
OF UNPARALLELED OUTRAGE ON MEXICO. It IS THE SEIZURE 
OF TWO THOUSAND MILES OF HER TERRITORY, witllOUt a 

word of explanation with her, and by virtue of a treaty with 
Texas to which she is no party.” 

What right, then, has President Polk to say 
that this territory is within one of our congres¬ 
sional districts.? When he asserts it, he assumes, 
instead of proving, that it “ rightfully belongs to 
the Republic of Texas.” 

The President’s last source of title is, that Con¬ 
gress has organized, a portion of this territory into 
a collection district.” It is true that the House, 
acting under the gag, did vote for the organization 
of a revenue district, and designated the place 
where the revenue officer should reside, viz: at Cor¬ 
pus Christi, But I do not believe there were ten 
men in the House who understood at the time what 
was doing, or could have told, if their lives had 
been at stake, where, by the terms of the bill, this 
revenue office was to be located. The bill passed 
suh silentio. We knew the chairman of the Com- 
niittee of Ways and Means had something in rela¬ 
tion to Texas he wished adopted. And from our 
knowledge of the proceedings of this House on all 
other Texas matters, we supposed of course there 
was nothing for us to do on this side but to sub¬ 
mit. For one, I solemnly protest against being 
concluded by this vote. And can a President of the 
United States rely upon such a fact as this, to prove 
that four departments of the Mexican Government 
have been transferred to the jurisdiction of the 
United States ? >Such an argument is offensive to 
the common sense of the country. 

I will now take the liberty of stating some other 
reasons which induced me to go against this war 
bill. I was not willing to trust the'President with 
the enlarged powers that this bill conferred upon 
him. There were no means that I would have 
left unemployed to rescue the army from the peril¬ 
ous position in which it was said to be, at the time 
this bill was introduced. But it was obvious to 
my own mind, and w^as the opinion of others, that 
nothing the bill proposed could relieve the army. 
If it was in danger, that danger, as I supposed at 
that time, would have to be encountered long before 
the means proposed by the bill could bring effect¬ 
ual relief. Subsequent events have proved the 
justness of these conclusions. I therefore felt my¬ 
self at perfect liberty to determine whether or not 
I would trust the President with the power to 
raise fifty thousand volunteers, and place in his 
hands ten millions of money, to enable him to carry 
on at his discretion this war of conquest against 
Mexico; I determined I would not; nor has any act 
of my life brought more sincere gratification in the 
review. I believed then, sir, that we had been be¬ 
trayed into this war, by the unauthorized and uncon- 
stitutional act of the President. Had he marched 
the army into Canada and bombarded one of her 
cities, it would not have been a greater stretch of 
power or a grosser infraction of the Constitution. 
And I verily believe if the moral sense of this na¬ 
tion had not become benumbed, deadened, and stul¬ 


tified, by the continued outrages upon the Constitu¬ 
tion, which have followed each other in quick suc¬ 
cession eveT since the commencement of this Texas 
enterprise, that there would go up from the whole 
country one unbroken volumn of indignant remon¬ 
strance against this act of the President. 

The President has made no honest effort for peace. 
It was by war alone that he could secure the object 
he had in view; and he took upon himself the re¬ 
sponsibility of declaring it. Unjust to Mexico as 
had been this acquisition of Texas, she was wil¬ 
ling to surrender it. The fact that General Taylor 
remained from July until the following March, 
about eight months, ^t Corpus Christi, and that 
during all that time no attempt was made by Mex¬ 
ico to drive him from his position, is incontestible 
proof of this fact. And after General Taylor had 
marched his army on to the Rio Grande, the con¬ 
dition of peace insisted on by General Ampudia 
■was, not that he should withdraw beyond the Sa¬ 
bine, but to the left bank of the Nueces. On the 
12th of April, 1846, General Ampudia wrote to 
General Taylor as follows: 

‘‘Your Government, in an incredible manner—you will 
even permit me to say an extravagant one, if the usage or 
general rules established and received among all civilized 
nations are regarded—has not only insulted, but has exaspe¬ 
rated the Mexican nation, bearing its conquering banner to 
the left bank of the Rio Bravo del Norte; and in this case, 
by the explicit and definitive orders of my Government, 
which neither can, will, nor should, receive new outrages, 1 
require you in all form, and at latest in the peremptory term 
of twenty-four hours, to break up your camp and retire to 
the other bank of the Nueces river, while our Governments 
are regulating the ponding question in relation to Texas. If 
you insist in remaining upon the soil of the Department of 
Tamaulipas, it will clearly result that arms, and arms alone, 
must [decide the question; and in that case I advise you 
that we accept the war to which, with so much injustice on 
your part, you provoke us, and that on our part, this war 
shall be conducted conformably to the principles established 
by the most civilized n.ations; that is to say, that the law of 
nations and of war shall be the guide of my operations; 
trusting that on your part the same will be observed.” 

From this letter do we doubt that in March, 
1845, when General Taylor left his camp at Cor¬ 
pus Christi, that Mexico was prepared to make an 
honest and fair treaty of limits, giving to Texas 
all Mr. Benton said she had aright to claim, and 
all that this House thought she could claim at the 
time of the adoption of the annexation resolutions? 

No, sir, neither our blood nor our treasure was 
needed to secure to Texas all she had a right to 
claim; ay, more than she had a right to claim. 
As an ultimatum, Mexico, as we have reason to 
believe, would have gone farther, and fixed the 
boundary between the two Governments at that 
desert which separates the waters of the Nueces 
from those of the Rio Grande. Last year, while 
in debate on the annexation resolutions, it was 
urged by the friends of the measure that this desert 
was the natural boundary between the United 
States and Mexico; or, in the language of the gen¬ 
tleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. C. J. Ingersoll,] 
“ the natural boundary behoeen the Anglo Saxon and 
‘ Mauritanian races. There'’ (said the gentleman) 

‘ ends the valley of the West; there Mexico begins. While 
‘ peace is cherished that boundary will be sacred; but, 

‘ until the spirit of conquest rages, will the people of 
‘ either side molest or mix with each other.’’ Even 
this, sir, we could have obtained by peace, as will 
be abundantly disclosed by the impartial history of 





11 


these proceedings. The natural inquiry now is, if 
these results could have been secured by peace, why 
should the President have preferred v/ar ? I an¬ 
swer, that it was because he preferred the interests 
of Texas to the interests of the Union. Had ne¬ 
gotiation been opened and a proposition made by 
Mexico to adjust the boundary, as I have suggest¬ 
ed, the public sentiment of the country would” have 
forced the President to have concluded a treaty 
upon those terms, and the great object of the Texan 
speculators would have been defeated; which is to 
acquire that good land between the Colorado and 
the Rio Grande, said to be the best in Texas for 
the products of slave-labor. This was one of the 
objects; and the other, the conquest of California. 
Had negotiation been opened, the people would 
have insisted upon neither of these; and the Presi¬ 
dent knew it. It was by declaring war, and 
awakening the national prejudices against Mexico, 
and stifling the public conscience by arousing the 
military feelings of a brave people, that this'most 
wicked scheme of acquisition was to be accom¬ 
plished. And who is to gain by this war? Our 
money is to be poured out like water; our peo¬ 
ple to be devoured by disease and torn by Mex¬ 
ican grape-shot; and eveiy inch of land that is 
conquered from Mexico beyond the Nueces by 
accietion becomes a part of Texas. This whole 
war has been got up to carry out those secret as¬ 
surances which, it will be recollected, Mr. Polk’s 
agent made to the Texan Government, that the 
refusal of this Government to pay their public 
debt should be no objection to annexation; that 
this Government would provide for that debt. 

This view of this subject is much strengthened 
by this pretended effort at negotiation; the rejec¬ 
tion of which is alleged as one of the causes of war 
against Mexico. This offer of negotiation w^as a 
war measure —aruse deguerre, to throw upon Mexi¬ 
co the responsibility and odium of hostilities. A 
candid investigation will be sufficient to convince 
any man of this. The President started out with 
the very commendable resolution of waiving^ all 
ceremony, and taking the initiativ'e in opening the 
negotiation; and yet, after conducting it for some 
time, with every prosjDect of success, we find him 
terminating it upon a mere question of technicality; 
and that, when the mighty results of peace and 
war were depending upon the issue. Mexico had 
agreed to receive a commissioner to treat with her 
exclusively upon the question of boundary. If the 
President was so willing to waive all ceremony, 
why did he not send a commissioner in conformity 
with the proposition of the Mexican Minister? Or, 
if he thought proper to send Mr. Slidell as Envoy 
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, why 
did he not instruct him to conform to the Mexican 
notion of what was due to her own consistency, 
and at once enter upon the negotiation as Commis¬ 
sioner? None can doubt that if the preliminary 
question of boundary had been settled, the other 
question—the adjustment of the claims of our citi¬ 
zens against Mexico—must necessarily and inevi¬ 
tably have followed. Mexico has never made any 
issue upon these claims. She has been willing, at 
all times, to submit this question of claims to an 
impartial and enlightened arbitrament, and there is 
little doubt that they would long since have been 


amicably and honorably adjusted, but for the con¬ 
tinued infraction of our treaty stipulations with 
her, in the prosecution of this scheme for the ac¬ 
quisition of Texas, which has been persevered in 
for the last fifteen years. But whatever may have 
been the cause of delay, we are the last people in 
the world that should rashly go to war to punish 
delinquencies of this sort. (The President well 
knevv that it was a matter of national pride with 
Mexico not to admit a Minister Plenipotentiary 
until the adjustment of the difficulty by which 
friendly relations had been interrupted, because, to 
do so, would have been to acknowledge that there 
was no just cause for interrupting those relations 
of friendship between the two Governments. 
JThere was no necessity for blending the question 
of boundary with the question of claims; and the 
two were united by the Administration, as it should 
seem, from an apprehension that so fair an offer 
would be made on the subject of boundary, that it 
could not with decency be rejected. It is certainly 
most extraordinary, that Mr. Buchanan, an ex- 
foreign Minister, should have mistaken the jDro- 
position of Mexico to receive a Commissioner. 
This word Commissioner, in diplomatic language, 
must be understood to have a precise signification, 
and not to be readily confounded with Minister 
Plenipotentiary. And this diplomatic intercourse, 
too, of all others, is subjected to the most critical 
analysis. Every word is weighed, and its precise 
import determined upon. In the exercise of this 
hypercriticism, it is difficult to believe that the • 
sending Mr. Slidell as Envoy Extraordinary and 
Minister Plenipotentiary, was the result of mis¬ 
take. The President and his Secretary, when 
they did this, could not but have known that their 
Minister would be rejected. 

I must stop here, without finishing my remarks 
upon this subject, for I am informed by my friends 
that I have but five minutes of my hour remaining; 
and I must devote that to my colleague, [Mr. 
Thurman.] I regret very much that my colleague 
fell into a train of remarks, such as those which he 
made use of, in commenting upon my vote upon the 
war bill. It would have done better in some dark 
corner of my colleague’s own district. And after 
all, what did his strictures amount to ? He gave 
us a stereotyped collection of extracts from rash 
New England sermons made during the last war. 
And the ravings during that same period, of a few 
misguided Federal editors in different sections of the 
country; with these he attempted to associate those 
wdio oppose the present war. The repeating of 
these old extracts upon this floor, it occurred to 
me at the time was in very bad taste. _ My col¬ 
league has not even the merit of selecting these 
extracts, for so often have the very same been re¬ 
peated, that the boys in my district, I am sure, 
are quite familiar with them. But I will ask my 
colleague when it was that he became so vehement 
a friend and supporter of this Texan cause ? What 
time did he become a convert? St. Paul, as he 
journeyed to Damascus, w*as not more suddenly 
converted, than the democracy of Ohio to annex¬ 
ation. The very day of the Baltimore Convention, 
the Ohio Statesman, the organ and mouth-piece of 
the Democratic party in Ohio, denounced annex¬ 
ation, and declared that its real object was to perpet- 




12 


uate slavery, and to increase the slave power of the 
South, and give them an undue influence in the 
councils of the nation. But, lo! in a single night, 
yes, in the twinkling of an eye, the democracy of 
Ohio had been brought over-(here the chair¬ 

man’s hammer fell and Mr. Tilden resumed his 
seat.) 

Mr. Douglass obtained the floor. Many voices 
called upon him to yield it for a motion that the 
committee rise; others cried out loudly, “No, no' 
goom” 

Mi\ Foot offered to move for the rising of the 
committee, but M!r. D. declined. He, however, 
yielded the floor temporarily to 

Mr. Thurman, who said that his colleague had 
asked him when he had been converted to the doc¬ 
trine of Texan annexation ? He would call on his 
colleague to say whether he had ever known Mr. 
T. to be opposed to it 

Mr. Tilden (the floor being yielded for that 


purpose) replied that he had never known the mem¬ 
bers of the Democratic party of Ohio to differ from 
the sentiments expressed in their leading organ, 
the Statesman. He knew the further fact, that the 
Democratic candidate for governor, who resided in 
his district, had uniformly denounced annexation 
until the Baltimcij’e Convention assembled, and 
even then, in his section of the State, he observed 
a very careful silence on the subject. 

Mr. Thurman said that the Ohio Statesman was 
edited by Samuel Medary, a distinguished and 
well-known Democratic editor, and that he had 
for months before advocated the measure of annex¬ 
ation. The opposition of that paper had been not 
to annexation, but to the treaty. The justice and 
policy of annexation had long been maintained by 
that powerful and influential editor. 

[I am indebted to the Hon. E. B. Holmes, of 
New York, for the annexed map.] 


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